Arizona, my home state, passed the strictest illegal immigrant enforcement in the country last week.  Immediately, the news wires and talking heads (not to mention politicians all the way up to President Obama) went crazy in response.  I know that I am often critical of the president, but this time he is right.  This bill is an abomination.

Now, I am the first to say it would be great to control illegal immigration in the United States and enforce the laws already on the books, but it is just not going to happen.  You need only look at a map to see the thousands of miles of borders along both Mexico and Canada to see that it is impossible.  To say otherwise is just silly.  And turning policemen into INS officers stopping potential illegal immigrants, when they are already overmatched fighting robbery and homicide, is just as dumb.

There are some very popular myths surrounding illegal immigrants, in particular those that are Latino, that we need to discuss first before I propose my solution:

1.  They commit a huge amount of crime.  Nope, that is just not true.  Illegal immigrants commit about as many crimes as any other person in the US, no more and no less.

2.  They clog up emergency rooms.  Nope again; mostly they just suffer silently for fear of being picked up by the INS.  That said, they do seek treatment when they are on death's door, but my solution covers that so just hold on a minute.

3.  They use welfare benefits.  Well, that's true only in states dumb enough to provide them to non-citizens like California as opposed to, say, Texas which has a bigger border, but not the same problems as California.  Hang out the "Free Money Here" sign and folks legal and illegal will show up, but whose fault is that?

4.  They are a bunch of drug lords.  Yeah, right.  Look, I have no doubt that there are Mexican drug lords but they aren't sneaking across the border on foot.  Most illegal immigrants are just poor schlubs who have to suffer to work here.

5.  They are taking American jobs.  I'll tell you what, speaking as a produce man's son, this is baloney.  How many Americans do you know who perform stoop labor - picking lettuce and melons or tomatoes on the hands and knees in 100 degree heat - under any circumstances?  And for the record, most produce cannot be machine picked; it is too fragile.  They gladly take the jobs that the rest of us wouldn't do under any conditions.

So what is my plan?  Easy, declare amnesty and make them all legal!  What?!  Amnesty?!  Why should we reward them for breaking the law?  Well, putting aside that every president does it all the time, as do lots of governors for real, heinous criminals, we should do this because it is the only practical solution that would really work.  Of course, there would be a few rules that would be followed because they are easy.  First, for those immigrants that come in out of the cold, so to speak, there would be no path to citizenship.  To do that, they would have to leave the country and come back in the traditional legal way.  This amnesty would only make them legal guest workers, not potential citizens.  Then, I would leave it to the states if they want to offer welfare benefits.  I suspect most wouldn't.  As to health care, now that they would be legal, they could buy or have bought for them by their employer’s regular health insurance - just like everyone else.

To cover the cost of the amnesty program, I would charge an annual fee to those who participate ($1200) of which can be paid on their behalf by their employers.  This is only $100 per month, would have little impact on them being a cheap alternative to American workers to do hard jobs, and would underwrite the cost of issuing cards and maintaining records.  Also they would be exempt from Social Security (and ineligible for benefits), so they would be cheaper for employers to afford but they would receive taxpayer id numbers and would have to pay taxes in the United States on their earnings. All of this is a small price to pay, as they are in lower income brackets but nonetheless they will pay their fair share.

With this program, we could task the border patrol and INS with doing the really important things they ought to like hunt down terrorists trying to enter the United States - at which they would be a lot more effective given their limited resources and manpower.  It is a waste of time trying to hunt down workers instead of terrorists.  Plus, as there are a lot less terrorists than workers, you can understand the argument for best use of resources.

The point is that we all need to relax and get real about this.  Building fences and patrols and enrolling police won't track down the estimated 15 million illegal immigrants already here - let alone those still trying to cross.  We need to treat this as the solvable problem that it is and get on with more pressing things.  What do you think?